Abnormal Rhythm
Chapter 08
As I was growing up, I wondered if I should become a medical doctor, but a visit to a hospital changed my mind. At the time, I was deeply attached to one of the operatives in our outfit. He seemed cool and invincible, and he took out enemies without a second thought. I didn't realize until I was older that his disregard for danger was more madness than bravery. Back then, I thought he was everything I wanted to be.
Though no one could get the better of him, from time to time he would come back with cuts, scrapes, and other injuries. The least serious ones he shrugged off or found alternative treatments for, but one time, he came back impaled with a piece of rebar. He was a tough one; it didn't even slow him down. Still, we thought it serious enough that he should get to a hospital—one that was friendly to us and that wouldn't ask questions. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I visited him while he was recovering, and I've never forgotten it. Hospitals are supposed to be places of healing and care, but they make me uncomfortable. The stubborn infections that resist all treatment, the sense that everything is spotless and yet still dirty and infested, and the need to be strong and silent while death is near—all those are reasons why I couldn't stand to practice medicine every day.
Those thoughts came back to me while we waited for Amari-san to wake up. Kudo-kun and I sat in a waiting room as the wee hours of the morning passed, and as much as I wanted to sleep, I couldn't. There's a particular smell in some hospitals. It's hard to get out of your nose. I couldn't sleep, but I was still tired. The waiting room was empty but for Kudo-kun and me. The nurse at the monitoring station was doing paperwork. Occasionally another doctor or nurse would come by, and after a while, I stopped paying attention to them. None of them had anything to say to us. The cleaning staff didn't even have much to pick up from the bins.
Around seven o'clock, Professor Noto stopped by. She sat beside me and offered a water bottle. "You look like hell," she said.
The professor could be coy or blunt, depending on her mood. She was small in stature, not personality.
"You should sleep," she insisted, "but don't lean on me."
I told the professor I was fine, waving off the fatigue. I'd pulled plenty of all-nighters in the past. This was nothing. She should've worried about Kudo-kun instead. He was sitting across from us, but he sat only gently against the back of his chair, as if meditating instead of sleeping, but he'd been perfectly still for over an hour. I'd been on the phone with some friends who were concerned about Amari-san, and I'd even talked about how rude he was, even if they thought his face was nice to look at. None of it had bothered him. He must've been more tired than I'd thought.
"At least eat something," said the professor, offering me an energy bar.
I passed, and the professor, never one to give someone a chance to change their mind, ate it without a second thought.
"Do you know what happened?" she asked.
"Did you know," I asked her, "about her father?"
"I did," she said, and while she could've told us that first night at the lab, she had no intention of talking about it unless asked.
"You respect her privacy?" I remarked. That was a surprise. When I'd joined the group, it took her less than five minutes to tell everyone I'd spent my youth in America and that they should run questions about English by me.
The professor's eyes narrowed. "I know I can be cavalier, but there are some things even I wouldn't talk about openly."
That I could believe. Though she worked with us closely, Professor Noto was a private person. She was certainly capable of discretion. I knew she was unmarried, but I'd never even heard of her seeing someone. She had a jacket from a ski resort in the area, but she'd deflected questions about it before, saying only that a friend of hers recommended a slope.
We talked about what Kudo-kun and I had learned about the case, and the professor was surprised we'd found out so much about Amari-san. "He really is sharp, isn't he?"
"He's not like what you've heard," I told her.
The professor raised both eyebrows and shot me a look. "So you haven't enjoyed running around with him over these past two days?"
We'd been investigating Amari-san's disappearance, not going on a vacation. "Amari-san thinks he's descended from the heavens. He's anything but that. He's rude, arrogant, self-righteous, and nosy."
"So he's the right man for the job, then."
"He's the right man for every job."
"That almost sounds like a compliment."
Of course Professor Noto would like the idea of Kudo-kun being around. She was nosy, too. I said that to her face, and she didn't deny it.
"I've always been nosy—sometimes too nosy for my own good," she admitted, "but it's because I've been nosy that I can be sure of one thing: you and Kagura-kun aren't as different as you think."
I looked at her expectantly. "You don't say."
"No specifics," the professor said, chiding me. "Let's just go with this: I met her at the JNS conference after we'd exchanged some emails. She knew what she wanted. She wanted to be here, but it was more than just academic ambition. There are some people in this world who just know they need to accomplish something. They have to make good on the sacrifices other people have made to get them where they are. Kagura-kun is like that, and so are you. I saw that in her, so when we had dinner at the conference, what do you think I asked her?"
I closed my eyes. "What she would do if she achieved her goals and what she would do if she failed instead."
"People like you and Kagura-kun have real potential," the professor went on. "That's why I wanted you here."
The professor had always talked about that—about potential, about making good on what we'd learned and the experiences we'd been through. In that sense, it didn't surprise me that she'd chosen Amari-san in keeping with that philosophy, but why was that her way of doing this? At the time, all I knew was that she was an enormously successful academic with strong ties to the pharmaceutical industry and a few drug patents to her name. She made a lot of money consulting, enough that she didn't need to be a professor. It was not an easy life, with long hours and tough competition to succeed, but she'd never given a hint of considering something else.
I didn't have the chance to ask Professor Noto about that then. A nurse stopped by to tell us Amari-san was awake. We wouldn't be able to see her right away because Inspector Yamato and her people wanted to question her first, and they were still at police headquarters. We'd have to wait a little longer. Of course, Professor Noto didn't like that. She complained, "We have a perfectly good detective right here, and you're saying he can't go in and ask a few questions?"
"It's hospital policy, sorry," said the nurse. "Please be patient."
"Get the police over here as soon as you can, then," said the professor. "The longer they take, the longer Kagura-kun has to sit alone."
"We're getting someone on the phone right now."
"No need," said Kudo-kun, who was wide awake and putting his phone back into his pocket. "I've already messaged Inspector Yamato. She's on the way."
Professor Noto and I looked at each other. "How long have you been awake?" she asked.
"I was never asleep," Kudo-kun explained. "I was thinking."
"You're kidding."
Kudo-kun looked at me. "I'm always the right man for the job, huh?"
I took Professor Noto's energy bar wrapper and threw it at Kudo-kun's face. It left a satisfying brown smear on his chin from a piece of chocolate that had been stuck to the inside. Kudo-kun was not amused, but Professor Noto and I thought it was just fine.
Inspector Yamato and her detectives came by within half an hour to question Amari-san. They spent as long as they could in her hospital room, until her doctors insisted that she needed rest. For all the time they spent questioning her, the police uncovered little: Amari-san had no memory of her captivity. The last thing she remembered was the night before her doctor's appointment. The inspector asked her about the flower shop and her visit to the clinic, but Amari-san couldn't tell the detectives anything. The easy conclusion would've been that Amari-san had blotted out the ordeal, but Inspector Yamato asked the hospital and Amari-san for a toxicology report. Beyond that, the inspector was oddly hopeful: the whole circumstances of Amari-san's abduction had been strange. Because of that, she hoped they would find evidence of a pattern. Someone who kidnaps a victim only to leave her alive and largely unharmed, who uses false license plates to evade detection, who ambushes their victims in a public area, and who breaks into the victim's home to search for information—there had to be another case like that in the area. It was too specific. The inspector left to comb through some databases, and she gave Kudo-kun her blessing to continue investigating on his own.
Since Amari-san had to be tired, Kudo-kun thought it best to let Professor Noto and me talk with her first. He also thought it would be improper to let Professor Noto be present while he interviewed Amari-san, so it would be better for everyone if Professor Noto said her piece and left of her own accord. Aside from that, Kudo-kun thought no one would want to be questioned twice about a traumatic ordeal in rapid succession. "Make sure she's in a good state of mind first," he told me.
"How considerate of you," I said.
Kudo-kun made a face, and he fumbled over his words while trying to put together a response. "Well, uh…." He thought better of that, whatever he was going to say. "You know her best," he said at least. "If you think she's not up for it, let me know, and we can take a break."
Of course I would, but I admit I was relieved I wouldn't have to fight him about it if push came to shove. Kudo-kun was an intense, single-minded person sometimes. To see him being so gentle with Amari-san's treatment was strange.
I was allowed to go see Amari-san first, but I hesitated with my hand on the doorknob. It's never easy to see someone you know vulnerable, but I also knew that it was no easier for the vulnerable person to see friends, either. I listened to the footsteps of nurses passing by and the dull rolling noises of gurneys on the other side of the ward. I tried to stop thinking, and that helped a little. Then, I turned the doorknob, feeling the mechanism move within my grip, and I went inside.
Amari-san was sitting up. She'd been looking out the window, even though the curtains were closed. The early-morning sun must've been attractive to her. When I came through the doorway, her head snapped toward me, and she tried to cover up her hospital gown with one of the sheets. "Shiho-chan?" she said. Her voice was weak and raspy. She cleared it a couple times, looking pained. Sipping on a glass of water, she motioned for me to come in.
"Time in the hospital isn't covered in your stipend," said Professor Noto, peering around me.
Amari-san laughed a little. "I asked for my laptop, but they wouldn't let me keep it. Can't I get a day off, Professor—just this one time?"
"Just this one time," said the professor, and the two of them smiled. The professor's joke had had the intended effect, but even Professor Noto couldn't keep the mood light forever. "How do you feel?" she asked.
Amari-san seemed embarrassed about being caught in a hospital gown. With that and all the sensors and the IV line, she was tethered to the hospital like a gnat in a spiderweb. She held out her arms, and the heart monitors and other wires and tubes moved with her.
"Don't think about it too much," the professor advised her.
Amari-san nodded, and she sat back in the hospital bed, sinking into the pillows and cushions. She asked about her grandmother in a roundabout way: was it true Ohara-san was being detained? It was, the professor confirmed, and Professor Noto wondered if Amari-san thought Ohara-san could've conspired against her. Amari-san insisted she couldn't imagine it, but she had no idea about what had happened to her, aside from what Inspector Yamato had said.
"Not even that morning, going to the appointment?" asked the professor.
Amari-san's eyes darted to me, then back to the professor. "I don't really want to talk about that."
"Shiho-kun knows," the professor explained. "She found out all on her own."
Professor Noto had never been one to beat around the bush, but I hadn't disliked her for it as much as I did that morning. Amari-san may have been naked under that hospital gown, but it was Professor Noto who exposed her, who took away the paper-thin protection of a perceived secret and left her with nothing. Amari-san looked away, and she reiterated what she'd said to the police: everything about the day she'd disappeared had been forgotten.
Professor Noto stood at Amari-san's bedside. "Don't worry about it too much," she said. "Some things are better forgotten." Amari-san shot her a questioning look, but the professor ignored it. She was all too happy to leave us to our own devices. "You two have some things to talk about," she said.
Amari-san wasn't sure whether to be thankful for that, but Professor Noto was out the door before either of us could protest. Looking uncomfortable, Amari-san turned her attention back to me. "What have you heard, exactly?"
I knew that Amari-san father died by her mother's hand, that Amari-san had been seeing a therapist since, and that Amari-san likely had been visiting her father's grave when she was abducted.
Amari-san took the news well. She seemed steady and not too surprised. She apologized, of course, as people often do when they have nothing to apologize for. Staring at the opposite wall, she laughed. It was inevitable that someone would find out, right? That's was her reasoning, anyway, and she felt doubly conscious of it, wondering aloud if she should've been more upfront about all this from the beginning, rather than only feeling guilty about her silence after the fact.
"You don't have to feel guilty," I told her.
"That's nice of you to say," she said with a sad smile.
Well, if she wouldn't believe me, maybe she'd believe someone who had a reputation for sniffing out the sinful and immoral?
Amari-san seemed to catch on to what I was hinting at. She sat up and peered at the door, where the detective came through on my signal. Kudo-kun ducked in with a small wave. "Yo!" he said.
The EKG's beeping sped up, but Amari-san was too stunned to notice how awkward that was. She stammered. "You—you're—"
"I am," Kudo-said, cutting her off. Oh, he was enjoying this. He couldn't contain himself. Wearing a silly grin, he played himself off as some suave gentleman, ready to solve a case for this fair maiden client of his. He even did a bow for her! He'd never bothered to act so polite to me. "Kudo Shinichi, private detective, at your service. You can thank Professor Noto for calling me." He jerked his head toward me. "It certainly wasn't her doing. She only seems to think I'm a nuisance."
There's a well-known theorem in higher mathematics that some things are true but can't be proven. Kudo Shinichi was insufferable—that was absolutely true, no matter how impossible it may have been to prove it to Amari-san.
"I hear you're a fan," Kudo-kun went on. "I hope I'm able to live up to your expectations."
"I doubt you will," I said.
Kudo-kun scowled. "Because Amari-san's expectations of me are sky-high?"
I didn't answer, which pissed off Kudo-kun nicely. I'd thought Amari-san would tell me off for being so rude to her idol, but she was still staring at him, totally stunned, like a salmon that had been pawed by a bear.
"Kudo-san is here to work my case?" Amari-san paled. Appealing to him, she said, "You didn't have to do that."
"I'm happy to," Kudo-kun assured her.
Amari-san looked at Kudo-kun, then at me, then back at home. "Well," she said after a time, "I put my trust in you for my case, then, Kudo-san. I hope you won't solve it so fast I don't even realize it! I don't know how I'd be able to tell people about it after if you pulled off something like that!"
Kudo-kun laughed, and he promised he would keep her informed every step of the way. She was a fan, after all; she should enjoy the experience, right? That's what he told her, but whenever Amari-san looked away, even if only for a moment here or there, I caught sight of Kudo-kun's scrutinizing gaze on her. There's a reason people like the metaphor of wheels turning inside a clever person's head: it gives the feeling of inevitability. Mechanical clocks seem to go on forever, bound by the laws of physics and the arrow of time. Of course, that's not entirely true. Even the most efficient mechanical clock slows down due to friction. Order turns to chaos, and information is lost forever, but for the moment, Kudo-kun watched Amari-san, and her heart beat faster while he was watching her, signified by the beeping of the EKG. Each of those beats was like the tick of a clock, and in less than seventy thousand beats, Kudo-kun would see through Amari-san and find out the truth.
She's supposed to be the victim here. What is it Amari hides?
Next time: Shinichi, Shiho, and Amari walk through the disappearance and try to figure out what happened to her and why.
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